Weekend Nugget:

Haggai 1:5 says “Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.” God sent Haggai to take His message to His people. This takes place in Palestine, when the Jews had been sent back by the commission of King Cyrus to rebuild their temple. However, fifteen years later, the temple had not been built, and they were going around with life as usual. They had taken time to build their own houses, and open their own shops to trade goods in, but they had not accomplished the one thing that they had been sent to do, build a temple for God. God finally spoke to them through Haggai, and said, “Consider your ways.” In essence, “think about what you are doing.” They had not accomplished what God had called them to, because they had sought to accomplish their own things. Ironically, they had not been largely successful at accomplishing for themselves. It seemed like they couldn’t make any money. It seemed like their fields wouldn’t grow any crops. They found themselves frustrated that nothing seemed to work like it should. A loving God had been trying to use fruitlessness in their lives to chasten them back to His glory and their joy in their obedience to Him, but they thought they should build their kingdom first and then build His. So finally, because of their blindness, He said, “Consider your ways.” I think of Proverbs 3:5, “In all thy ways acknowledge Him,” and I think that if they had acknowledged Him, His temple would have already been built and they would be living in their own houses with crops and provision for their families taken care of. But they had gotten their priorities out of order, and had turned their focus on themselves and accumulation of stuff for themselves. So a loving God stopped them and sent His Words through His man, Haggai, to offer correction and an adjusted vision for their benefit and for His glory. They did well to “Consider their ways,” and eventually they did build the temple, and God was magnified and they found true joy.

Food For Thought: How can we sometimes end up living life like these Jews that didn’t build God’s temple? Hear God now speaking to you, “Consider your ways.”